School-led providers top teacher training rankings

School-based teacher training programmes take the first three places in the Good Teacher Training Guide

The top three teacher training providers in England are school-based programmes with fourth place going to the University of Cambridge, according to the latest edition of the Good Teacher Training Guide.

The North East Partnership Scitt (school-centered initial teacher training), based in North Shields, was named the best provider of postgraduate teacher training in the guide, followed by the Billericay Educational Consortium Scitt in Essex, with the King Edward’s Consortium, Birmingham, taking third place.

The Good Teacher Training Guide 2015 ranks providers according to the entry qualifications of its trainees, the course quality – according to both Ofsted and trainee ratings – and teaching take-up, using information from those who went through training in 2013-14 and into employment last year.

The analysis in the guide shows that 86 per cent of the school-based trainees entered the profession compared with 80 per cent of postgraduate trainees in universities. Take-up from undergraduate trainees was lower, with only 74 per cent of the final year undergraduate trainees entering teaching.

‘Great strength’

“This report underlines the great strength of school-led provision which is that schools have this requirement to look at a trainee as a potential colleague, and not just a student,” said Professor Alan Smithers, of the University of Buckingham, who co-authored the guide with colleague Mandy-Diana Coughlan.

He added that the report showed a way that the government could identify the best providers – following its pledge in last week’s white paper to introduce new quality criteria for initial teacher training providers.

The guide also highlights the fact that trainee numbers had fallen 6.3 per cent in the two years since the previous Good Teacher Training Guide in 2013.

Professor Smithers said that the turbulence of moving to a school-led system could be part of the reason for the drop.

James Noble-Rogers, executive director of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers, said: “There is excellent training provision across all routes into teaching. With the accreditation of vast new numbers of Scitts it is not surprising that they are starting to take a higher profile in league tables.

“A careful analysis of data will show that in terms of quality most provision is good or outstanding, and on entry into the teaching profession after a couple of years the data for the different routes are much the same.”